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As we all know the various regions of Britain
have their own distinctive dialect / accent. The East Anglia region was
no different. A couple of years ago on the internet Norfolk Mailing
List, the subject of the Norfolk dialect was discussed. One comment that
sticks in my memory was that the Norfolk dialect rivaled the Scottish,
thus illustrating the difficulty that outsiders would have had in
understanding the local dialect. So it is no wonder that Oxford educated
Vicars, most likely from another County, at times made a pig's breakfast
of spelling our ancestor's names.
The following variations are in my
opinion variations of the GODDARD name in Suffolk records :-
GODDWARD, GODWARD,GODHERD, GODHARD, GARRAD, GORID, GORRID, GARROD,
GARROD, GORRARD, GORRORD, GORROD, GORWOOD, GARWOOD.
It would
seem that the rural Suffolk accent was a guttural one?, that made it
hard to distinguish the "D" and "R". (mmm you are saying!). Well I give
the following examples of what I feel is evidence of my theories on the
above variants :-
Barnham (Suffolk) Parish Register :-
baptisms
1771 Edm, son of Edm & Ann Margueta GORROD
1774 Will, son
of Edm & Anna Margueta Maria GODDARD
Undoubtedly the same parents.
Barningham (Suffolk) Parish Register :-
baptisms
1770 Ann d.
of John & Rachel GODDARD
1772 Esther d. of John & Rachel GORROD
Again one family. There were 5 baptisms for this couple nicely spaced
from 1763 to 1776 with the first three spelt GODDARD and the last two
GORROD.
Ingham (Suffolk Parish Register
Marriages
1743
Jacob GORWOOD & Ester CLARKE
I suspect that this is the marriage
of my Jacob Goddard & Ester ancestors for the following reasons :-
-
Gorwood is not a name that otherwise appears in the Suffolk records that
I have found so far;
- The combination of first names of Jacob &
Ester is not common;
- The marriage took place 8 months prior to the
baptism of Jacob & Ester's first child in Little Livermere;
- Ingham
is adjacent to Livermere, being on the other side of Ampton Water;
-
and no other recognizable marriage event can be found for the couple in
Boyd's marriage index for Suffolk, which for the year is almost 100%
complete for that County.
Further evidence has been provided to
me by another Association member Ray Goddard of Melbourne :-
Diss
(Norfolk) Parish Register
1802 Samuel Norris married Mary GODDARD
1803 baptised Sophia d. Samuel Norris & the late (formerly) Mary GODHERD
In a 5 year time frame between 1776 and 1781 references to baptisms
of 3 children of common parents use firstly GODDARD then GODHARD and
finally GARROD.
And to quote Ray Goddard further :-
"I work in
an organisation .... which has about 1800 employees. One of these ... is
a Wayne GARRARD. I can tell you that for the past 27 years people have
consistently confused us. I continually get his mail and he gets mine.
This confusion extends to the spoken word also. Our names are often
interchanged during conversation."
And the details from a letter
supplied by Sue Green in New South Wales. The letter is from 1857 and to
quote "Dear sister you want to know about your uncles and aunts and you
have only one aunt alive now and that is Mary Gorid, George Gorrid and
Jeremiah Cullum .... is alive" It is quite clear that the letter is
referring to my George & Mary Goddard as Mary was formerly a Cullum and
her brothers were then named.
Thus it would appear that the
Suffolk dialect / accent was such as to make the Goddard "D" sound like
"R". Whilst the above is rather a long discourse I think it is needed as
I have doubters who need convincing!
We would appreciate input
from other members, particularly any from the Suffolk or East Anglia
area who can shed more light on this subject of the Suffolk / Norfolk
dialect and how it would have impacted on the written spelling of the
name in a less literate age.
By Simon
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